


Inferi, Run!

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Zombies Run!
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from the ZR Kink Meme:<br/>Something set in HP! Maxine and Paula are sassy Ravenclaw girlfriends! Sam is a Hufflepuff! Jack has the world's scrawniest, moultiest owl ever and abuses the thing terribly by giving it big stupid packages to send to his Canadian boyfriend! Alice is a Quidditch star! MORE AWFUL SWEATERS!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inferi, Run!

"So they're like Inferi?"

"Yeah!  Yeah, sort of like that, except not magic, obviously.  Maybe that's how the legend started -- Muggles saw the Inferi, but 'cause of the Secrecy Act and stuff, they made up their own reasons."

Maxine nodded, taking another bite of her cauldron cake.  Sam was reading a Muggle comic about zombies, and naturally, had to explain what zombies were.  

"But if they're Inferi, then why can they infect people? And what's with the brains?"

Sam was stumped -- why would that have been an addition to the story?  To make it scarier, he supposed.  Maxine was asking all these questions that you weren't meant to ask -- zombies liked brains because they did! That was how things were.  Unfortunately, Maxine didn't seem to see it that way.

"I dunno, I suppose they needed it to act like a disease, because that's what they know -- you can't randomly just become undead, but if it's like a disease then that makes sense."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does, to them, in this context, okay?"  Wow, Sam had never realised that explaining Muggle things to witches would be so bloody difficult.

"And the brains?"

"I have no idea about the brains," he admitted.  "Perhaps there was an outbreak of Mad Cow?"

"What the hell is Mad Cow?"

No, life was too short for this.  Far too short.  Sam Yao shook his head, defeated.

****

Maxine and Paula met at Gobstones club.   Well, they didn't meet there -- they lived in the same dorm, so really they met the first night they both came to Hogwarts.  But the Gobstones club was the first time they really noticed each other.  That was what they said when people asked -- they'd fallen in love over a game of Gobstones.

Paula had won, seven to three.

Whenever Paula added in that detail, Maxine elbowed her in the ribs, but the effect was always lost by the huge grin she had on her face.  (No one could ever get her to tell whether she'd lost the game on purpose, but that was the general consensus.)

****

"C'mon, W.G.  You can do it.  Come on, just a bit higher, there we go--"

"Jack, you realise that owl is barely capable of flight while holding such a huge package, right?"

Jack turned around to see Paula and Maxine, two Ravenclaw girls from the year above.  Maxine had one eyebrow raised, but she was smiling, so he wasn't about to be hexed.  It was all good.

"W.G. can fly!  Look at him go!"  They watched from the Owlery as the scrawny bird flew west, wobbling slightly every few seconds.

"He's not going to make it," said Maxine.

"I agree," said Paula.

"You just don't have any faith in him," protested Jack, frowning.  "He's made the trip to Canada heaps of times!"

"What are you sending to your dear Eugene this time?" Paula asked, and Jack blushed to the roots of his hair.  (He always did when someone mentioned Eugene, and Paula found it _hilarious_.)

"A tape.  Tom Waits discography.  So, well, several tapes.  And a tape recorder so he can play them.  He doesn't have Muggle technology, so I figured I'd, uh, yeah."

"You're so smitten," Paula said, sniggering.  "We've yet to meet your Eugene, you know.  You can't keep him all to yourself forever. He must be lovely -- he got you that jumper," she added, breaking into giggles again as she admired the ugliest jumper she'd ever seen. It was lime green and a particularly uncomplimentary shade of aqua with a J on the front. "Did he knit it himself?" Jack blushed again. So that was a yes.

"He's in _Canada_ ," Jack said, frustrated.  "Even I only get to see him at Christmas and over the summer holidays."  His shoulders slumped slightly.

"Look at it this way," said Maxine, trying to cheer the younger boy up.  "At least you can talk to him.  Poor Sam can't even get the guts up to speak to Alice."

****

Alice was a chaser on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and Sam thought she was _beautiful_.  She was clearly the best player on the pitch -- anyone could see that, right?  And she had so many adoring fans and she was so beautiful and she'd never even looked at Sam twice.  Not that she ever had a reason to, because Sam never spoke to her.  Maxine kept telling him to go for it, but he could never get up the guts -- so he just sat in the stands, waving a Ravenclaw banner (except when they were playing Hufflepuff, when he still cheered every time Alice scored against them) and daydreaming that he could make her smile like she did when she'd scored a goal.  One day he would.  One day.


End file.
